Two large Philly law firms announce separate mergers

Harold Brubaker reports for Philly.com:

Ballard Spahr LLP and Saul Ewing LLP announced separate mergers on Tuesday that will expand the Philadelphia firms’ geographic reach and service offerings.

Saul Ewing said it had merged with Arnstein & Lehr LLP, which has its biggest office in Chicago, effective Friday and had changed its name to Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr. Barry F. Levin, of Saul Ewing’s Baltimore office, will be the managing partner of the combined firm, which will have 408 attorneys and 409 staff in 15 offices.

Ballard’s deal, expected to be completed Jan. 1, is with Lindquist & Vennum, a Minneapolis firm with specialties in mergers and acquisitions and finance. The combined firm will be called Ballard Spahr. It will have more than 650 lawyers in 15 offices nationwide, Ballard said.


See Saul Ewing announcement here

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The Trump EPA’s new one-man-politburo grant reviews


Welcome to the new EPA where a Trump campaign aide is in charge of reviewing requests for grants and is quashing any linked to climate change


Taylor Link writes for Salon:

A politically-appointed public affairs officer who has little background in environmental policy has the sole authority to approve the EPA’s funding of grants and awards. John Konkus, a former Trump campaign aide, has been using this new authority to veto any grants related to climate change.

According to The Washington Post, Konkus has cut $2 million of grant awards to universities and nonprofit organizations. The state of Alaska has lost out the most thus far.
EPA spokesperson Liz Bowman downplayed concerns involving Konkus’ politicized influence, writing in an email to the Post that grant decisions “ensure funding is in line with the Agency’s mission and policy priorities. We review grants to see if they are providing tangible results to the American people.”
Former EPA head and Republican Christine Todd Whitman criticized the role of Konkus, telling the Post, “We didn’t do a political screening on every grant, because many of them were based on science, and political appointees don’t have that kind of background.” Whitman said she could not recall a time when a political appointee offered input on a grant, let alone determine whether or not a grant would receive funding.
Konkus is a longtime Republican politico from Florida who served as Trump’s Leon County campaign chairman. He previously worked as a consultant for Florida lawmakers. Konkus joined the EPA in February to work on communications issues, Politico reported at the time.
In a recent letter obtained by the Post, Democratic Sen. Tom Carper, who is the ranking member of the environment and public works committee, asked EPA head Scott Pruitt to outline which grants were now under consideration of political review.
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Federal judge orders EPA to act on Delaware air pollution

Marcus Hook, Pa industries. Delaware officials say the state gets much of its air pollution from other states.



























Karl Baker reports for The News Journal:

A federal judge on Friday ordered The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take action within 90 days on a Delaware plan to reduce ozone-causing air pollution.

The order came as Judge Phyllis Hamilton denied EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s motion for relief from a consent decree, which had mandated the EPA either approve or reject Delaware’s plan to use “reasonably available technologies to control major sources” of ozone pollution by Sept. 29.

“EPA is hereby ORDERED to take final action on the Delaware (plan) … within 90 days of the date of this order,” Hamilton stated in her ruling in the U.S. District Court in California.

The EPA delegates authority to states to enforce certain parts of the federal Clean Air Act.

The judge’s order was the latest action in a case involving a coalition of environmental groups, which in July 2016 had sued the EPA, alleging the federal agency failed to act on numerous states’ air pollution plans.

The environmentalists in a statement said the “decision means Delaware is one step closer to having a plan in place that assures protections around the clock against smog.”

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Your Right Not to Know About Exploding Chemical Plants

Texas lets companies keep chemical inventories secret, even when their plants become dangerous enough to evacuate the surrounding neighborhood. New Jersey takes a different approach.


Michael Barajas reports for the Texas Observer:

On Tuesday, officials ordered the evacuation of hundreds of houses within a 1.5-mile radius of the flood-ravaged Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, about 20 miles northeast of Houston, after they saw a list of compounds at the site. On Wednesday, the company’s CEO refused to publicly release the inventory of chemicals inside his plant, even as the company warned of potential explosions. Early Thursday morning, containers of volatile organic peroxides started exploding.
This alarming uncertainty is state-sanctioned. Texas allows petrochemical plants to keep chemical inventories secret, even when those plants have become dangerous enough to evacuate the surrounding neighborhood. Why this basic information is no longer public speaks to the absurdity with which Texas, home to the nation’s petrochemical epicenter, regulates the industry.
For decades, state officials treated so-called Tier Two inventories — where facilities list the types and quantities of potentially dangerous chemicals on-site — like public records. The need for easy, quick access to that information became obvious in 2013 when a fire at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, ignited 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate. The explosion registered a 2.1 on the Richter scale, injured more than 160 people and left 15 dead, including a dozen firefighters who didn’t know what was stored at the plant or how dangerous it was. Media and chemical safety experts started asking for Tier Two reports to map potential powder kegs across the state.
That’s when then-Attorney General Greg Abbott stepped in. In the middle of his first successful campaign for governor, Abbott ruled that facilities and government agencies could withhold those reports by citing a decade-old anti-terrorism law meant to block the release of information that could be “likely to assist in the construction of an explosive weapon.” When critics pushed back, Abbott told Texans to “just drive around” and ask the plant operators for that information if they’re so concerned.
Last year’s prescient investigation by the Houston Chronicle and Texas A&M University’s MKO Process Safety Center, which ranked the Arkema plant in Crosby among those with the “highest potential for harm to the public,” detailed how Abbott’s ruling emboldened industry, public agencies and even emergency management officials to start withholding those reports.
Hence the confusion this week as reporters, experts and community members struggled to assess the danger posed by the flooded plant. As Gretchen Goldman with the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote on Thursday, “We are witnessing in real time the confusion that results from limited access to chemical safety information in an emergency situation.”

Read the full story here 

In New Jersey, State Senator Ray Lesniak wrote yesterday: 
“Unlike Texas NJ Has A Right To Know Law To Protect You & First Responders. Back in 1986, I co-sponsored New Jersey’s Right to Know Law which still does not exist in Texas. I also formed the Union-Middlesex County Hazardous Materials Advisory Council which provided first responder training and alert systems in the event of a toxic discharge. This was the precursor of our County HAZMATs. New Jersey has the strongest Environmental Protection Laws in the country. We needed them more than any other state as well. Texas should follow our lead.” 

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Ethics probe of overseas trip by Lance, other congressmen

Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ)
Paul Milo reports for NJ.com:
Rep. Leonard Lance is one of 10 members of Congress who took a trip to the central Asian nation of Azerbaijan that is now the focus of an ethics probe, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The Post, citing a confidential report it obtained prepared by the Office of Congressional Ethics, said the May 2013 trip was secretly funded by state-owned SOCAR, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic. Lance’s $1,885 airfare was paid by the company, according to the OCE report, which also funded expenses incurred and gifts received by other lawmakers during the conference in the city of Baku on the Caspian Sea.
The money for the 10 Congress members’ trips and several staffers, about $750,000, was channeled through two U.S.-based nonprofit organizations. In a filing, the corporations claimed they were actually funding the trips, the Post reported.
The trip came as Congress was considering sanctions against Iran, which has a partnership with SOCAR. Because of congressional rules barring foreign governments from attempting to influence foreign policy, the OCE report has been referred to the House Committee on Ethics for investigation of possible violations, the Post also reported.
Several of the Congress members mentioned in the report have denied any wrongdoing. A spokeswoman for Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, told the Associated Press that the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians, one of the groups, told Poe’s office and the Ethics Committee before the trip that it was the sponsor of the event. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., reported a gift of two rugs received during the trip and later decided to return them.
Lance, a Hunterdon County Republican, also received a rug as well as earrings during the trip but also gave them back, his office told NorthJersey.com.
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